A Guide, by SingleH
Introduction
In this step-by-step guide, I will be teaching you through a detailed representative case how to ruin someone else’s media franchise, and I will be doing it with the assistance of the animated series Psycho-Pass, a perfect exemplar with which writer Tow Ubukata has already proven in my stead the foolproof nature of the techniques I’m about to teach you. In this tutorial, you will be assuming the role of a replacement for the given series’ original creator in an effort to emulate the given model, and I will instruct you on the four key methods at your disposal with which you can lay complete and total waste to the series entrusted to your care with your writing alone, no matter how solid its concurrent standing and no matter how great the talent of its founding and present-day staff.
Step 1. Invalidate their themes.
Themes are the heart and soul of any artistic work, and in the case of Psycho-Pass, Tow Ubukata has proven himself to be a true master of this subtle craft even more so than the ones to follow, as he’s managed to execute the following with a series who’s primary enduring value is in said themes. Psycho-Pass was a series about political revolution set in a dystopia wherein human consciousness and lawful tendencies could be measured and predicted to an extent criminals could be identified by their thoughts, not actions, and the main villain, Shogo Makishima, was a man who could inexplicably commit criminal acts without catching the attention of the surveillance state. Now, this all sounds like the set-up for a choice Hollywood techno-thriller or some young adult video game, but being Criminally Asymptomatic wasn’t just some superpower, it was a societal statement via Makishima about the nature of free will vs determinism. Makishima wasn’t able to kill because of a mutation in the genome or a hack in the system, he was able to do it without raising his Crime Coefficient because he genuinely did not view those living with and operating under the Sybil System to be human—even subconsciously—because they had given up so much of their decision making abilities and personal command of life, he believed them to be little more than bags of meat devoid of agency, ego, or conscious. And the conversation the show had with itself managed to go even deeper by way of the fact Shinya Kogami was put into conflict with Makishima based on action, not conviction. He wanted revenge for the murder of his former partner, not because of some high-minded philosophical debate, and in pursuit of this vengeance, he abandoned the systematic determinism of the Sybil System having acknowledged the fact he himself truly wanted to kill Makishima, thereby supporting his own rival’s argument that individuals cannot confine themselves to someone else’s decision making whist retaining their own judgement and ability to act upon their motivations. Pretty meaningful, right? Well, by introducing a character such as Shindo Arata, a true-to-form Mary Sue who’s latest and greatest ability was such, Ubukata swiftly and expertly hollowed out that entire thematic core in one fell swoop. Having a character without a single ambitious conviction hold the label of Criminally Asymptomatic confirms, at least in this version of the story, it is indeed just a superpower you may or may not be born with as opposed to a mental state conditioned by your intensely personal, revolutionary beliefs, and it irrecoverably tanks the thematic maturity of the work in every facet of contemplation or study.
Step 2. Underutilize or falsely utilize their concepts.
Now, I could easily just echo the aforementioned example of trivializing the nature of being Criminal Asymptomatic in this case as well, but Tow Ubukata has yet again proven his well-rounded utility in this field by providing us with a wondrous wealth of further examples to cite and dissect. Firstly and most iconically is the legendary Dominators. The Dominators are quite possibly the most emblematic and publicly iconic concept to come out of Psycho-Pass, and Tow Ubukata used them—a characteristically cyberpunk symbol of the series’ grit and uniqueness—to not only make the series turn tensionless, but to also make it as run-of-the-mill as any other teenage edgefest you can find. In the first season of Psycho-Pass, Urobuchi Gen, staying true to his nickname, “Gen the Butcher,” utilized the Dominators to terrifyingly impactful effect, using them sparingly but brutally to maximize their presence and memorability, and the legendary animation staff of Production IG delivered these punches will all due gore with their lavishly animated visceral realism. To turn such expertly crafted thrill into a mere joke, Tow Ubukata took advantage of the comparatively pathetic animation quality of Tatsunoko Production to overuse and dilute the Dominators in season two, thereby making them and their now wackily drawn death scenes little more than memes in the public consciousness. In Psycho-Pass 3, however, the animation production was back in the hands of the godly studio which initially birthed it, so to make sure the Dominators didn’t make their comeback, he made the simplistically genius decision to just stop using them altogether. Of course, this is in direct contrast with the setting’s established protocols, but this is yet another reason such a decision so smartly ruined such a strong concept. Production IG animated the living hell out of the endless hand-to-hand combat sequences found in Psycho-Pass 3 and the downright militaristic urban warfare found in First Inspector, but thanks to Tow Ubukata’s heavy lifting behind the scenes, no viewer could shake the question, “Why not just scan and shoot?” Anything from his complete and total underestimation of the established ubiquitousness of the Street Scanners which monitor the populace at large to his utter lack of understanding with regard to the actual permeability of the nationstate overseen by Sibyl, Ubukata’s expert incompetence made sure every vital idea the original series had was thrown into the garbage with such exquisite technique, one almost doesn’t even want to stop him.
Step 3. Break their characters and/or supplant them with bad ones.
There is no better example on planet earth and no better professor to explain it than Psycho-Pass and Tow Ubukata in the art of wasting characters. In the first season of Psycho-Pass, Urobuchi Gen crafted downright electrifying character personas which had the viewer helplessly glued to the screen at all times, and he imbued each and every one of these badasses with the thematic substance he made himself famous with in shows like Magical Girl Madoka★Magica and Fate/Zero, wherein the characters are just walking, talking moral and philosophical theses respectively. Be it the most iconic anime rivalry of the 2010s, the most thought provoking moral debate of any modern dystopia, period, or the most cathartically complete character arcs in any action thriller I can think of, Butch Gen made Psycho-Pass a true masterpiece of screenwriting while IG made it a masterpiece of modern TV animation, and Tow Ubukata threw it all away effortlessly with a micron of the practice they expended in building it. Firstly, he didn’t try expanding on the characters when the story came to continuation with Psycho-Pass 2, and he also didn’t bother opening up the new characters he brought in. Psycho-Pass 2, for those of you who didn’t know, actually wasn’t even supposed to exist. Urobuchi Gen and Naoyoshi Shiotani, the series’ director, were literally in Southeast Asia doing location study and filming a production documentary for the Psycho-Pass Movie when the production committees behind the anime demanded a second season on TV within the year to capitalize on the series’ massive success. Being the monolith they are, Production IG has many subsidiary studios like Tatsunoko Production to outsource animation to, but seeing as there was no way to have the creative staff fully commit to both productions at once, they found a replacement writer in our teacher, Ubukata. Seeing as the film’s screenplay was already towards finalization, Ubukata had to fill a cour of content without expanding the narrative to an extent which would overtake the developments found in the film. While any writer worth their salt could write some juicy filler, Ubukata instead decided to write a full-fledged continuation which was structured such that the plot line could expand as much as it wanted only in so far as the finale could come in and eat itself backwards as to not overtake the film’s continuity by killing every character relevant to its expansion. A bizarre choice, indeed, but by introducing a whole new cast and only developing the ones he was eventually going to kill off as to not shake up the future narrative which was already planned, Ubukata managed to keep the entire incoming main cast as stagnant and stale as livingly possible.
Psycho-Pass 3 and First Inspector, on the other hand, were supposed to exist, and Ubukata was finally permitted not only to make a story of his own design, but to do so in a way in which permanent changes could be made. After all, following the aforementioned production quagmire, Urobuchi Gen stated outright he would not be returning to the series after having felt quite fairly it was ruined in a way out of his control. Among the permanent changes Ubukata made to the plot and setting, many of which we will be discussing in the fourth and final lesson, he also made further additions to the main character cast. Instead of finally having his way with the characters he was never allowed to alter, Ubukata turned them into full-time bench warmers for his new main cast, Kei Mikhail Ignatov and the previously discussed Shindo Arata. Kei is a brilliant example of a narrative rotten apple who corrupts all characters who come into contact with him. Not only does he symbolize Ubukata’s misunderstanding of the series’ setting which is the subject of our final, Step 4, but more immediately speaking, his motivations and character writing are completely and utterly malleable and a beautiful breeding ground for plot holes. In an effort to superficially mimic Shinya Kogami’s mental decline, Ubukata manufactures no shortage of random outbursts and nonsensically rash decision making from Kei to spice up the plot, and just as you start suspecting it to be all contrivance, it’s promptly and hilariously revealed to us him and his wife are throughly trained sleeper cells who never should’ve suffered from mental trauma post-conditioning anyway. Arata—while betraying the themes as discussed in Step 1—is actually a character, but—as was also discussed in Step 1—is an Elder God tier Mary Sue. Whether it be mystery solving astral projection, crime fighting mind reading, or literal parkour gymnastics, this guy has every trap card a hack screenwriter could ever wish for, and they all come at exceptionally convenient time and with pathetically nonexistent explanation. But don’t worry. Not only did he give these disasters the limelight, but he also made sure to utterly defile all the characters he’d initially left on the bench. From his retconning of Yayoi’s entire founding character development by robbing her of her spirit of the law, completely disrespecting her character’s resolute choice to become a proud enforcer, to his shameless ex post facto rehash of Akane’s entire set of fundamental priorities by taking her prior stance as a headstrong leader who’s aware the system is rigged against her, and who knows she has to take matters into her own hands in order to take ground from an enemy she must essentially cooperate with, and molding her into a passive intellectual who doesn’t mind sitting in the shadows whilst the world goes to hell outside her jail cell—despite the fact she was as take-charge as Motoko Kusanagi last time we saw her—every change Ubukata made managed to be a complete and total bastardization of any original intention the series could’ve ever had.
Step 4: Challenge the foundation of their world, and call into question the logic behind its mechanics.
While blatant to a comical degree, Tow Ubukata’s execution of this final technique was downright incredible. In the first season of Psycho-Pass, Japan was established to be a near impenetrable fortress under Sybil. With the overseers having taken advantage of Japan’s conveniently isolated geographical locale and exceptional ability to mind its water-bound borders whilst being on an international stage plagued with civil war and little to no foreign conflict or meddling from their end, the Sybil System’s society easily managed itself as a locked nation. This point was of such narrative importance, it was literally the plot device used for the series finale, wherein Makishima attempted to knock out their food source and force them to open their doors to trade, or in other words, open their doors to immigrants. Immigration was always the perfect downfall for the Sybil System because, as it was proven in the Psycho-Pass movie, the social contract it establishes is so fundamentally different from any which has existed on planet earth prior to itself, that any from of connection to the outside world would cause seriously radical dissonance between the Japanese and the rest of the world. The Sybil System could only work on an island, literally, and Makishima’s master plan was to make said island uninhabitable such that its citizens would have to either leave or allow others with the resources they lacked inside, thereby polluting their perfectly calculated collective cognitive state. So what does our master, Ubukata, do with his newfound control over the narrative? He makes Sybil choose to allow immigration. A B S O L U T E G E N I U S. The conflict seated in immigration is quite possibly the single most asinine plot development you could ever even think to house in the Psycho-Pass universe for its established rules and setting, and by having it take up the focus of the entire installment of Psycho-Pass 3 and First Inspector, anyone paying even a lick of attention to continuity and consistency will know the writer is completely and totally unconcerned with the logical foundation of the show they’re building upon. And even after this bombshell of a plot hole hits the viewers like a bullet train to the face, they then have to take in the idea of the Foxes, or the Bifrost, or the fucking unscanned cult-districts in the middle of the city! I understand this level of purposeful contradiction is the stuff of legend, but this is the level of unabashed foundational deconstruction you need to enact to break a setting as airtight as that of Psycho-Pass, and this is why Tow Ubukata is the best at what he does, as well as the best to teach you how to do the same.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, at the end of the day, you are just a single individual, so you can’t realistically hope to completely destroy every singe little part of their franchise all by yourself. By invalidating their themes you make the series totally shallow and devoid of any meaning, by underutilizing or falsely utilizing their concepts you make it impossible to find the series interesting or engaging, by breaking all their good characters and/or supplanting them with bad ones you make it impossible to invest in the series emotionally, and by challenging the foundation of their world and calling into question the logic behind all their mechanics you trivialize even the most basic building blocks of the narrative, but even in our example, poor Ubukata has been stuck in the most technically proficient & thereby critically respected animation studio the world has ever seen, so no matter how thoroughly he desecrated the script at hand, all those pesky animators will keep it looking visually stunning, which isn’t even mentioning Naoyoshi Shiotani’s expert visual direction behind it all, as he personally served as episode director on episodes one and two. That said, as a writer, there is next to nothing your co-creators can do to relieve you of the means to ruin their franchise with the given steps, so even if some annoying, talented people around you do their jobs, anyone consuming the final product will be hard pressed calling it good thanks to your nobel efforts, and those working in your tandem will be equally hard pressed in stopping you from hammering the final nail in the coffin, the coffin of a masterpiece they built and you single-handedly broke into a downright depressing train wreck.
Thank you for reading. And thank you to those who made my Psycho-Pass 3 review top-rated before it was taken down explicitly for being too creative. I love you.
